How does the number of Mentos placed
into a 2-Liter bottle of Diet Coke affect the height
of the stream of Diet Coke that erupts from the bottle?

Hypothesis:

If the number of Mentos is
increased, then the height of the stream will
also increase.

Materials:

·2-Liter of Diet Coke

·Mint Mentos

·Paper and Pencil

·Brick wall (outside) to measure height

·Mentos-Dropping Apparatus (shown in picture
below)

Procedure:

1.Gather materials.

2.Walk outside next to a tall brick wall.

3.Open a Diet Coke bottle and place on the ground,
next to the brick wall.

4.Place one Mento inside
the bottle.

5.Measure and record the height of the stream by
counting the number of bricks equal to the stream’s maximum height.

6.Repeat steps 3 through 6 seven more times, but
increase the number of Mentos use by one each time.

Data:

Number of Mentos (x-axis) vs. Height
of Stream (in Bricks) (y-axis)

Conclusion:

Our hypothesis is incorrect because our data shows that as
we increase the number of Mentos, the height of the stream does not always increase.

Sources of Error:

1)All of the bottles of Coke were supposed to be
unshaken. As we saw firsthand, some were shaken right before use. This may have
had an impact on the stream height.

2)We had a couple of misfires because of the
moisture in the tube we used to insert the Mentos. For example, if we loaded 4
Mentos into the tube, only 1 or 2 successfully dropped in when we pulled the
pin. This led us to measure a couple trials that were much lower than expected.
Those were removed from the graph. To solve this problem, Mr. Guertin manually pushed all of the Mentos from the tube
into the Diet Coke using a pencil. This, however, was not fool-proof.

3)One of our trials used Caffeine Free Diet Coke.
Because this soda contains different ingredients, this introduces a variable
that we were not prepared to test. This may have had an increased or decreased
effect on the stream – or possibly no effect at all.

4)Some Diet Cokes were cold at the time of use.
This may have an effect on the stream. If it did, it was probably marginal.